這篇文章寫於北京清華交換時,是『影視欣賞』這門課的導演研究。
回家後看到一張David Lynch的CD,封面上的帥哥很明顯不是右邊這位悲傷老兄。但也許這是我之所以在一張有Ridley Scott 、Francis Ford Coppola 、Terrence Malick、Quentin Tarantino、Stanley Kubrick、Woody Allen、Christopher Nolan、Wes Anderson、David Lynch 的選擇名單裡直覺選擇他的原因。
最近有個朋友因為興趣去修了電影的課程,在印象中我還當她是名看個「衝鋒陷陣」就會哭得悉哩嘩啦的小女孩,沒想到現在已經是一名為了電影修課的女神了,也太誇張。但覺得那時這種看電影的態度好美、好真。
我也想要把我對電影最認真的一段時間做個記錄:用我的方式、選最適合我方式的主題。每個當下都要認真過活唷,>.^。
David Lynch
Dream, Reality and Stage
Abstract
I
saw three David Lynch’s films in total. They are The Elephant Man(1980), Lost Highway(1997) and Mulholland Drive(2001). These
three films reveal the path of his seek for the humanity. He tries to disclose
the darkness behind daily life. Although we may have heard that “Life is a
routine. That’s why we have to read, in pursuit of abnormal lives.“, in David
Lynch’s film, life is not only a routine, butit also contains a sexual desire
which will finally lead to violence and aggressive behavior to others. David
Lynch was an independent director. He produced his film with a small team from
the very beginning of his career. The team included his long cooperated music
composer Angelo Badalamenti. Wining many awards with his special style and form
can’t help him win the main production company’s favor. Finally I will conclude
the similarities of these four works and point out the meanings of his films
from dreamperspective. As the last part, it will speak of some concept of
psychology by explaining the Freud view of dream.
Path of his films
Elephant
Man was based on a real English person called John Merrick. The black-and –white
film started from a filthy circus where John Merrick was found by a kind
doctor. He was took care of by the doctor secretly until the doctor well
examined the English and show his work, “Elephant Man” to his academy
colleagues. The Elephant Man became wilder known after population found him a
gentleman who can read and write. Unfortunately, during the night at the ward,
an evil door keeper would sell the chances ofwatching Elephant Man to people
from lower social class. They mocked and mistreated him and left him with
insults. During the day, Dr. Treves introduces John to people from higher class
in spite of that those people just came for Elephant Man’s reputation. Except
for the interaction with people from various classes, John’s life had nothing
different from the life in circus until he met Mrs. Kendal.
He finally understood the feeling of love when Mrs.
Kendal’s lips became his salvation of sin on his

lips. Compared to her mental
salvation, Dr. Treves’s confession when he abandoned all effort of finding
John, “you can’t go after him. You’re needed here by your patients. You did
everything in your power. Remember that, Treves. Everything in your power.”is a
betrayal. And from the scene, Dr. Treves seemed to know where John is. He
seemed watching John being tortured. He cleaned up the window in order to look
inside, but we audience couldn’t see anything inside. What we see is Dr. Treves
himself. Director told audience how hypocritical the doctor is by the confession.
At the near end of the movie, the director uses the change of DOF to remind the
audience that these two roles are no longer trusted each other like before.

In
The Elephant Man, David Lynch usedwhite
film to redefine beauty and ugliness. The doctrine style also displays the
story in a cleaner way, and thus contrasts how complicate the humanity can be. The
only element appeared in Elephant Manwhich
repeatedly exploited by Lynch in following films is smoke. We will talk to it
later. It’s worth mentioning that Elephant
Man and The Straight Story are
the only two movies showing the light side of the humanity. According to Lynch,
these two films are so different from other films he’s directed that he
admitted their meanings are very important to himself.
Lost Highway is the movie I could
understand best after seeing Mulholland
Drive. One can easily recognize David Lynch’s style which, in my opinion,
is similar to Magic Realism in literature.The story is about a jazz musician
who killed his wife. Although the time in the film is forward, I think the
events appeared in film is backward orderedso that the film revealed nothing
new or worth expected. It’s merely a review of one’s life.
The narratology
is switched between two characters, the jazz musician and a young car repairer
by the prison guard one day suddenly find the jazz musician who supposed to be in
the cell was replaced by another lad. I believe so because we can take musician
as lad and map the wife to the woman seducing the lad according to these two
women’s picture. And both men have many similaritiessuch as their favor of
darkness and their psychological condition. The lad is the innocent projection
of musician, otherwise he is the early life of musician.The lad, Pitt, is the
good kid. He used to have a excellent repairing skill and a stable
relationship. Pit is an innocent man because he was deprived of the power to
change the real world. So I made a chart to contrast the twoparallel worlds.
Real World (with living burden and dark
side of humanity)
|
Imagine or perfect world
|
Fred (jazz musician) and Renae
|
Pitt & Alice
|
Fred killed Renae and Boss
|
Pitt killed a harmless porn director
|
Fred solved the problem by kill
|
Pitt escaped from the problem with Alice
|
In
spite that Pitt lives in a rather perfect world, which he even didn’t kill
anyone, he is the strongly opposed to the world (As he trembly mumble: ”I
killed him”, what a coward, that’s what appeared on Alice’s face ) .
Thus
we found the vulnerable boy on his way
to discover the cruel world possess nothing but dream. But the cruel world can
only be dealt with the adult who applies the more cruel measure. And that cruel
man is indeed a grown up boy. The boy took away his dream, the girl. But he is
doomed to suffer from the sin or the consequence of his pursuit of the dream
after he has grown up. It’s not like the happy ever after fairy tale.
David Lynch’s film usually provides a strange and ugly figure who intentionally
appeared in many transition. I sum up that in Lost Highway and Mulholland
Drive, the figure represents the dark side of the role.
What’s more, it connects the different
scattered section of plot together but in irrational way. David Lynch put the weird
old guy at these two parallel worlds to explain that they are both restricted
in the same time frame, and possesses the serial relationship. One can never find the musician and lad appeared at the same time.
At the end of the film, the scene of fast passing by highway road appeared
again like the initial scene. It proved my assumption that the film was a
metaphor. Nothing new inside the movie, one can’t expect the movie to change
the world, even the world inside the movie. The world existed when the movie is
playing, and distinguished when movie stop playing. The movie just records the
life and repeats it every time when one plays the movie.
And
finally here is Mulholland Drive, the
most credited film. Wining three best
movie awards and two best director awards, the movie begins with the mysterious
smoke. Ha! It’s my last chance and very time to grab the idea of smoke.
Smoke has played
the great role in Lynch’s films since The
Elephant Man, when John was given birth, there is a misen-scene comprising
of elephant and woman’s shaking head. Following the misen-scene is the smoke,
and audience can hear the baby crying from the smoke. When night falls in the
film, when the evil door keeper forces John to see himself in the mirror and
makes his spirit split, the smoke arise. In Lost
Highway, Lynch used sounds and light more than smoke. The flashing light appeared
when Fed had a severe headache imply the transition of
personality. In Mulholland Drive, the
smoke appeared as the film started and imply space’s transition. When I look up
the
movie on the Interent, many argue that Camilla who
lost her memory and be taken care of by Betty was Betty’s projection of Camilla
in the real life. Betty’s jealous of Camilla’s achievement so that she can no
longer love Camilla. This argument is strong. To my opinion, the things
happened in the near end of the film are more irrational to me, such as the
magical blue box and the weird homelessness looks like a abnormal existence.
According to Freud, one’s ego exists in unconscious mind, which can only be
observed by the active of dreams. The logic in dream or the logic conducted by
ego is totally different from conscious mind. But one’s behavior is conducted
by id, ego and superego, we can’t tell whether the behavior is occurred under consciousness or unconsciousness
by a single act. I believe Lynch try to
make the dream plot more like consciousness behavior and otherwise in reality
part in order to blur the line of reality and dream. I believe he try to inform
audience the daily routine can based on the nonsense mind or at least driven by
the desire of that unconscious ego which behaves in ”irrational” way.
My favorite part
of Mulholland Drive is the scene when
Betty and Camilla sitting in the theater watching the singing on the stage. The
singing was so marvelous and touching (indeed) that they both shedding tears.
Suddenly the singer fainted but the singing keeps going. The singing is fake !
But is it? I believe Lynch try to say that performance is the art of letting
audience enjoy. Believe every move although it might lie to you, because it is
meaningful. Music plays an important role in Lynch’s film. As the modern
director, and perhaps without mainstream production support, he must know how
to affect people by a more sophisticate and primary way. The song “Rammstein” hits me immediately as I heard
the sound like a train passed by the railroad. It sounds like something is
going to hit me, very suitable for the confliction scene. The singing scene in Mulholland Drive put the music beyond
the measure of affecting audience’s feeling, but it is metaphor and plot itself.
Here is my
conclusion. First, Lynch film break the logic of plot,
he deliver the idea that the power of ego is the irrational factor of daily
life directly through the disorder narrating form. Thus the monotone of life
will one day become the tragedy. Second, the power of music is the Lynch’s
style. He tends to use smoke, light and music as a metaphor to imply the
transition of certain element. Lynch is the brave director, and he is never
easily satisfied with his way telling story. It’s hard to classify his style or
form. “Can’t understand” may be
the most notable mark of his film. But one thing for sure, Lynch will never
stop digging into the darkside under the hollow and monotone modern lifestyle.
But with his sharp narrating perspective ,Elephant
Man and The Straight Story , one can assure the concern and the seek for
warm humanity is the base of his directing.